It Caught My Eye: Beware Of One-Eyed Men Bearing Buildings

After my visit Thursday afternoon to the Exposition Park roses, I took a series of shots of one of the two bas reliefs made in 1931 by by Bartolomeo Mako that grace the Memorial Gateway outside the garden’s entrance. It was only when I stitched them together into the following panorama (click to humongify) that I noticed the strange fellow in this procession of athletes and scholars and maidens commemorating the 1932 Olympics. He’s the one with the eyepatch fifth from the right carrying what looks to be City Hall.

Anyone know (or wanna guess) who this dude either is or symbolically represents?

this has me truly perplexed. seems like it should be John Parkinson – among numerous other things he worked in collaboration with his son on the Memorial Coliseum, was responsible for the 1919 master plan of USC and was one of a team of 3 architects involved in the planning of City Hall. but to my knowledge JP didn’t have long hair, a beard or an eyepatch…

Sha, that was my first thought, too and I went krazee with the google trying to find any image of Parkinson (and the two other men involved with City Hall: Albert C. Martin/structural and John C. Austin/working drawings). Nothing.

Good point, RAE. Our mystery man very well could be four-eyed instead of one-eyed. Especially since there’s an absence of any line that might suggest an eye patch strap continuing past his ear around his head. But the visible lens being opaque suggests sunglasses rather than prescriptions, which is pretty much just as intriguing as an eyepatch.